{"id":17310,"date":"2017-10-13T01:00:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17310"},"modified":"2022-01-06T19:49:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:49:23","slug":"album-review-volcana-goddess-of-flame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/?p=17310","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Volcana &#8211; Goddess of Flame"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Volcana &#8211; Goddess of Flame<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Release Date: <\/strong>October 3, 2017<br \/>\n<strong>Label<\/strong>: Independent Release<\/p>\n<p>For nearly 13 years, Vic Stown was the brainchild, heart, and soul of NWOTHM masters Vindicator.\u00a0 Releasing some of the finest yet sadly overlooked metal music of the past decade, Vindicator relentlessly put out flawless metal albums but eventually, Stown felt a change in direction.\u00a0 When I hear that an artist that I really admire makes this kind of announcement\/decision, I immediately find myself feeling nervous.\u00a0 Will it live up to what said artist has done in the past?\u00a0 Well, I learned very quickly that it\u2019s not about living up to anything that\u2019s already been done.\u00a0 It\u2019s about forging a new path and that is exactly what Stown did with his new band, Volcana.\u00a0 Volcana features Vic Stown on rhythm gutiars\/vocals, Jeff Potts (Gygax\/ex-Mantic Ritual\/ex-Warbringer) on lead guitar, and Glen Monturi (ex-Seven Witches) on bass\/drums.<\/p>\n<p>The album opens up with the instrumental intro \u201cThe Unwelcome.\u201d\u00a0 As the song intro played on, I felt like a kid ripping open that first layer of wrapping paper on this gift that has been presented to me.\u00a0 Will it be the giant diecast Voltron I always wanted?\u00a0 Will it be an ugly ass pair of pants and socks?\u00a0 Well, as \u201cScolopendra (Come Forward)\u201d kicked in, I knew right away that this was a gift of epic proportions.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"750\" height=\"422\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Gj7YP2THUgA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Volacana\u2019s sound is such an exciting yet comfortably familiar sound for me.\u00a0 Instead of the heavy-handed thrash influence, Volcana favors the more melodic Iron Maiden\/NWOBHM sound.\u00a0 \u201cMerchant Lord\u201d, \u201cWe Stand\u201d and \u201cDrone\u201d are all fantastic representations of this new direction but \u201cGlory or Doom\u201d is, in my opinion the show stopper on this album.\u00a0 With its twin guitar harmonies, synchronized stop\/starts and a vibe reminiscent of something we could\u2019ve heard on Master of Puppets, this song really encompassed what I feel like this band is all about.<\/p>\n<p>Another huge difference in Volcana is Stown\u2019s vocals.\u00a0 The vocals really sell it for me with his emotive, gruff, yet clean sound.\u00a0 Being able to hear and understand the lyrics is a huge part of the Volcana experience and to me is what completes it all.\u00a0 If you\u2019re a great musical band but have shitty lyrics, it does nothing for me but when you can complete the package with lyrics that tell a great story and captivate you, you\u2019re doing your job and doing it well.<\/p>\n<p>Volcana isn\u2019t Vic Stown trying to re-write a chapter in a book that he\u2019s been writing for 12 years or so.\u00a0 Instead, Volcana is a brand-new beginning.\u00a0 Vindicator was a powerful entity in their own right but to me, Volcana is the \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d story that Stown has been working toward all these years.\u00a0 Sometimes the best story is the one yet to be told and with Volcana, the story has just begun what, what I hope, will have many more chapters to follow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pick up the album at <a href=\"https:\/\/volcanametal.bandcamp.com\/album\/goddess-of-flame\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/volcanametal.bandcamp.com\/album\/goddess-of-flame<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Volcana &#8211; Goddess of Flame Release Date: October 3, 2017 Label: Independent Release For nearly 13 years, Vic Stown was the brainchild, heart, and soul of NWOTHM masters Vindicator.\u00a0 Releasing some of the finest yet sadly overlooked metal music of the past decade, Vindicator relentlessly put out flawless metal albums but eventually, Stown felt a change in direction.\u00a0 When I hear that an artist that I really admire makes this kind of announcement\/decision, I immediately find myself feeling nervous.\u00a0 Will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,277],"tags":[1869,803,1868],"class_list":["post-17310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","category-music-news","tag-vic-stown","tag-vindicator","tag-volcana"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19654,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17310\/revisions\/19654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southeastofheaven.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}